Calculating carbon: a frugal household is a green household

Shopping Golightly at The Thrifty Chicks encourages us to count carbon, just as we count calories. I wish I could take a literal approach to her idea. In particular, I wish there was a really good carbon footprint calculator out there that would let us track our monthly or yearly progress.  Sure, carbon footprint calculators are easily found on the internet, but most of them are too simplistic to give an accurate, complete picture.  A good many of them are only accessible to United States citizens, but even those that are applicable to Canadians are limited to calculating factors like transportation, gas, electricity and so on.  I have yet to find one that takes a variety of lifestyle choices into consideration.  Tracking progress and seeing results is such an important component to success; whether we’re talking about dieting, saving money, or putting extra hours in at work, we need to know that what we are doing is making a difference. It helps us to stay motivated.

I’m starting to wonder about what kind of inadvertent (positive) effect my frugal choices have had on the environment.  For example, I thrift instead of buying retail - in fact, during the last 6 months, I’ve only purchased three items of clothing from retail stores - the rest of my purchases have been made at thrift stores. I eat vegetarian about 80% of the time.  I usually drink coffee at home instead of buying out. I use the Garden Fresh Box program and frequently shop directly from market vendors or farms, which means that the bulk of my produce is local, and I rarely require plastic bags.  After learning a few tricks from my readers, I have reduced my electricity consumption and now air dry most of my laundry and dishes, avoiding the drying cycle in the dishwasher altogether.   After my old clunker of a car kicked the bucket, I bought a new, more efficient vehicle.  These are more obvious choices that help to reduce environmental impact - but what about waste reduction in the kitchen? My efforts to create a DIY-kitchen, with homemade foods of all kinds - including snacks, cereals, sauces, and junk food - means that I am less prone to buy ready-made food products that come a box, can, or plastic wrapping. In fact, I used to rely on a lot of pre-packaged, often individually-wrapped, wasteful products, which I now make from scratch.  What kind of impact is this having? Although it might be small, I wouldn’t doubt that the accumulation of this kind of living has got to make some kind of an impact over time.

Included in the carbon footprint calculator should be a question related to how many pets you have and what type.  I recently read in The Star that feeding a medium sized dog for one year has twice the environmental impact of driving a luxury SUV for 10,000 kilometres.  I must say that I question the research behind this finding - according to the article, the researchers “based their calculations on the amount of acreage needed to sustain the dog’s diet of 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals in a year.”  But most dog food, if I’m not mistaken, does not use “meat”, it uses animal by-products. By-products include the leftover feet, necks, intestines and other “nasty bits” that are not considered usable meat.  So although it obviously takes energy to grind and process the by-products, we should not count the total amount of energy required to raise livestock.  The livestock would be raised for other purposes anyway - if we didn’t use the by-products for dog food, it would probably be thrown away.  This, I’m guessing, significantly reduces our pets’ carbon pawprints, so don’t feel too guilty about having your pet just yet.  Nevertheless, it is still another mouth to feed, and if we want to be realistic, we would want to include our pets as part of our households. So far I’ve yet to see a calculator that takes a dog or cat into account.

Which brings me to a final rant, ahem, point.  Pets are worth having. Children are worth having. I hate it when we get into these debates about whether or not we should just kill each other or off ourselves in order to save the planet. The point, I think, is that we need to rethink our values.  My frugal philosophy is to reduce waste and focus my financial resources on lifestyle choices that are consistent with my values.  Likewise, animals and families are worth fighting for - we don’t want or need to eliminate them altogether; quite the contrary.  The whole point of environmental sustainability is to keep on living, and living joyfully.  We need to sacrifice the things that matter less in order to keep the things that matter.

A frugal household, it seems, is a greener, less wasteful household.  I’d like to find a way to track just how much less wasteful it is.

Homemade doggy treats

I thought this was a great idea, and perfect for a homemade gift this year: Bake your own doggy treats!  Very simple recipe, and a healthy, tasty treat for your loyal companion!  Check out the blog at pawluxury!

Pet smarts

I thought of one more tip for saving money on your pet that I would like to add to my commentary from last week.  We saved several hundred dollars just by price checking before we had Butternut neutered.  Since we had recently moved to the Beach in Toronto, we looked at a couple of vet clinics, both of whom quoted us between $500-$600 for the operation.  That seemed excessive, and one of my friends recently told me that just by driving to a clinic in London (a smaller city a couple of hours away) they saved about $400.  We called our former vet in the West end of Toronto, who agreed to waive the initial consultation since they had seen Butternut only a few months before, and gave us a rate that was somewhere around $250.  Shop around - and don’t worry, price does not necessarily dictate quality, so you won’t sacrifice good care.

Who let the cat out of the bag?

My point, that cats do not need expensive toys, is proven.

    *PS Don’t worry folks, that is a paper bag, not plastic, and I was keeping an eye on her the whole time.  I’m much better with the supervision than I am with the discipline.

Purrrfect Pet Savings

My kitten, Butternut, is one of my biggest blessings.  Every day when I get home from work, she begs to be picked up and then proceeds to lick my face, just like a dog.  Our pets enrich our lives.  But pets, as much as we love them, can be expensive.  Here are a few tips to save money when caring for your beloved four legged friend.

1. Save with coupons.  Right now there are plenty of coupons for Iams to be found on save.ca and in Canadian Living Magazine. (In save.ca there are coupons for $5 off Kitten and Puppy Chow and $2 off Cat or Dog Chow.)  Recently, I found a number of Purina $1 off coupons at Loblaws and of course grabbed a whole bunch.  Last winter, I registered my kitten with Purina and they gave me a coupon for a free bag of Purina One cat food.  Since the coupon arrived late, they apologized by sending me another coupon for my next purchase of Purina One.  Unfortunately, this great deal has expired, but keep your eyes out for further deals.  (When searching for coupons for pet food, just keep in mind that you should not abruptly or erratically change your pet’s diet.)

For my American friends, you’re in luck - there are plenty of coupons available at Purina.com. You can also subscribe to their newsletters or Snack Club using that same link, and be notified of future coupons or promotions.

2. Use Petsmart’s saving system.  Apply at the register.  You attach your loyalty tag to your key ring and it gives you special deals.  And if you call the number they give you within 48 hours and complete a brief telephone survey, you get $5 off your next purchase!

3. Make your own toys.  There is an abundance of crafts you can use - string, ribbons, toilet paper rolls, and other bits of packaging can be made into cute cat toys with very little effort.  I have done this myself on many occasions.  And like children, sometimes the simplest toys, like cardboard boxes, provide the most fun.

4. Wash cat toys in the machine.  Not all toys will survive but you can usually suss out which ones will be just fine.  This means that you can reuse the toys even when they get terribly dirty.

5. Shop at the Dollarstore - like Dollerama - for pet supplies like food and water dishes (and rubber mats to place under them to keep them from spilling).  They also have toys and treats, all for $1 each!

Josh and Butternut, sharing a tender moment

6. Store pet food in a a plastic container with a good lid - especially if you buy in large quantities.  It keeps food fresher for longer and reduces the smell to boot.  I love Lock n Lock products, but you can reuse containers from around the house.  For example, I recently used an old Epsom salt container to store Butternut’s pet food, after realizing I forgot her Lock n Lock full of cat chow at my parents’ place on the weekend.

7. Buy catnip in large quantities, and then store it in the freezer.  It’s cheaper in large quantities and it stays fresh in the freezer!

8. Consider pet insurance or keep your pet indoors. Butternut is an indoor cat, so her risk is reduced significantly. But if you have an outdoor pet, you might want to consider buying pet insurance, and President’s Choice seems to have pretty reasonable rates.

9. Take advantage of warranty rebates.  If you recently got your pet from a pet store, look carefully about the warranty that she comes with. Some pet stores will claim to refund your vet bill if your pet has contracted a disease at the pet store.  Diseases are rampant at pet stores, so this appears useful.  However, there is usually a clause that states that your vet bill must not only be signed by your vet but must also have a clear diagnosis written on the bill.  Since this is not common practice, you must explicitly ask your vet to do this for you, before you mail it in to make your claim. 

10. The best things in life are free.  Pet products are a big business these days, but I think what your pet really enjoys the most is your love and attention.  They don’t care how much you spend on them.  They just want to be loved and cared for.